Beat your competition with the 8 step follow up system! We have been working with Car Dealers since 1996 and we have participated in many success stories, and have witnessed many failures. The following system is not necessarily the best or only follow up program out there, but it will definitely help you get organized and develop a successful sales pipeline. Your competition is dropping the ball! Most Internet sales reps will only respond once to a lead and will use canned responses. If you have already read this manual (which we strongly recommend) you already know that the average online used car buyer will take 3-4 weeks before purchasing. So all of the one time hit or miss sales reps out there are only going to get one shot, one month before he buys. There are a few sales that you will get using one time hit or miss follow up, but the numbers are against you. We are assuming: You know how to use email, and have already started designing response templates to personalize and send out. Step 1: Read the entire lead and remember that your email response will be determined by how much info the shopper has given you. Once you respond the lead now becomes a prospect. Check the prospects email address and open an email response. You should make sure that the prospects exact email address is in the To: part of your email. Step 2: Choose proper response template and personalize based on what the prospect has put on the lead. Make sure that you have also put a good opener in the Subject box. If you leave the subject box empty, your response will probably get deleted. Make sure the prospect knows to contact you direct, or you will lose deals to the floor. Attach any photos or links and ship the email to the prospect. Step 3: You should now place this lead in your 48 hours folder for a second follow up letter. We recommend that you use Microsoft Outlook and create Folders for each month and folders inside the month for each day. This way you can drag and drop a copy of the lead you are responding to on Feb 3 and put it in the Feb 5 folder. This way on Feb 5 you can address this folder after processing that days leads. This is where you start to develop a pipeline of prospects. Step 4: Review your follow up folder for that day and you will find leads from 2 days, 1 week, 2 weeks etc.. to follow up on. Each one will require a different template depending on where you are at with that prospect. After determining which lead needs what templates you will repeat step 2, only this time you will put that lead in the folder usually a week later. Feb 5 lead goes in the Feb 12 folder. Typical follow up templates: Are you still in the market? Did you get my email? I haven't heard back from you, I'm still looking, have you had any luck yet? I have what you are looking for Step 5: Setting appointments and killing dead leads. As you check each days folder you will find that people respond and set appointments, and buy from you. Other prospects will email you that they already bought or to tell you to stop contacting them. These leads must now be put in appropriate folders. Obviously a dead lead folder is needed to keep your current folders clean. You will also need an appointment folder and a sold or pending sale folder. Step 6: After 2 weeks of email (you should have sent 3 by now, original, 48 hours, one week) you will now start to receive responses. Remember the average used car buyer online takes 3-4 weeks before they purchase so you are starting to get close to their purchase area. Step 7: After 3 weeks of no contact you must maintain a positive upbeat message because at this point 99% of the other Internet sales reps have long since quit and the persistent sales reps will eventually win. After you send your fourth email and still have not heard anything it time to change your strategy. Step 8: One month after you have not heard anything you should not quit. Many shoppers are finally ready to make a decision and there is a very good chance that your persistence will pay off. After the fourth email you should design a template that you will send every week for another 4 weeks. This template should address the original lead request and invite them to contact you when they are ready to buy. Does this sound like a lot of work? Well, if you start a daily folder system, drag and drop responses up the ladder, and keep designing new and fresh response templates, you will find that it is very rewarding. If you do everything we address in our 8 step system and keep the multiple response system working, you will never have a slow day and you will eventually need additional help to keep your system moving. Return to training homepage